“Repent, they’ll knock off your sentence” - Lukashenko placed Internet extremists under house arrest
The creator of the extremist telegram channel “Nekhta”, which oversaw Belomaidan, Roman Protasevich, who was detained a month ago in Minsk during an emergency landing of a plane due to mining, was transferred to house arrest. The preventive measure was also softened for his friend Sofya Sapega, who admitted to editing another extremist telegram channel, “Black Book of Belarus,” which posted personal data of law enforcement officers.
The BBC reports this with reference to the parents of the defendants, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Protasevich and Sapega live in a rented apartment. Sophia's lawyer Anton Gashinsky told the Russian liberal TV channel Dozhd that she met with her parents in a restaurant and hinted that Protasevich was present at the meeting.
There is no official information about the change in the preventive measure yet, but both the opposition and the loyalists believed the BBC, since a few days ago photos appeared on the Internet in which Protasevich and Sapieha were giving interviews to state television channels in the park.
Belarusian political activist Andrei Sych considers what happened not as a concession, but as a “strong move” by the authorities.
“Lithuanian kept women are bursting at the seams with envy and misunderstanding. Look what an interesting situation is unfolding. I do not rule out that both may fall under the next pardon or amnesty, which everyone is so actively discussing. This, of course, will be a super strong move: it will release those who realized that they were openly taken advantage of. And those who actually used it have repented and are cooperating with the state. Just imagine the itch that will begin in the country of fugitive politicians, whose funding is already being cut and the future is extremely uncertain. Although, for me, Protasevich and Sapega, of course, deserve more than one year at the sawmill,” Sych wrote in his Telegram channel.
“Lithuanian kept women” really look confused.
“House arrest is not freedom, they are still under charges, guards are still watching their every move. Which means they are still hostages. We will not allow trading in the lives and destinies of people,” wrote the self-proclaimed “leader of the Belarusian nation” Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, ignoring the fact that Protasevich is already bargaining with his fate, and successfully.
Another fugitive Belarusian oppositionist, Pavel Latushko, presents the case as a forced concession by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko under pressure from Russia and Europe.
“There are a number of factors that can have an impact. First of all, this is a meeting at the Putin-Lukashenko level. Because she is also a citizen of the Russian Federation who has been released under house arrest. So, probably, what is more important is not what you are a person, but what kind of passport you have in your pocket. The next factor is, of course, the unprecedented sanctions that the European Union announced yesterday against the Lukashenko regime, and this is already an accumulating effect. Well, the next factor is to show that if you confess, repent, and say what the authorities want, then you can be guaranteed freedom, albeit in such a form as house arrest,” Latushko said on the liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy. .
Belarusian political scientist Igor Tyshkevich, who fled to Kyiv, warns the opposition against the misconception that Lukashenko placed Protasevich under house arrest out of weakness. On the contrary, an extremist blogger becomes a weapon of the regime in the propaganda war.
“This is just the beginning. Protasevich will be launched “according to the Voskresensky algorithm” (a political scientist arrested in August 2020, after pleading guilty, participates in constitutional reform as a propagandist for the government, - ed.) and that the first outcome will be within 2-3 weeks.
There is no need to connect the game according to Protasevich with the thesis about the “surrender of positions” by Lukashenko’s entourage. There is no point in giving birth to another myth, the disappointment of which will be very painful for those who believe,” Tyshkevich wrote.
RT journalist Konstantin Pridybaylo is outraged by the decision on Protasevich and Sapega. He recalls that the defendants leaked personal data of Belarusians online, dooming them to persecution.
“With this, the Belarusian state simply spat against the wind. To me, this is some kind of stupid weakness. How can ordinary Belarusians now trust the state, which first promises that it will find everyone, identify them and punish them according to the law. And then the real scumbag and his vile partner sit quietly at home and drink tea? Well, let's be honest then and leak their address. The mass of Belarusians have something to say to this couple. Thousands of people have suffered because of these scum. I don’t believe the tears of Prosthesis, and especially the sweet face of Sapieha. How many lives they have broken, how many people have gone through incredible stress... And they are walking through the park hand in hand,” Pridybaylo wrote.
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